Hooded Nib Fountain Pen

[Jobesmirage]

Hi guys,

 

I was looking for a kind of pen that I think only Hero or perhaps Baoer might produce. A hooded nib (similar to the Parker 51 and the Parker 21) with a cartridge converter filler. Generally copes such as as the Hero 616, Hero 100, and Hero 1000 are going to squeeze sac fillers. I do have a few of these pens and find the squeeze sac annoying to use in comparison to the twist converters on modern pens. Any idea on pens that might fit this description?

[OCArt]

Parker 45's are great pens and can use either cartridges, piston-style cartridge converters or the squeeze converters. Very trouble free and widely available on the used market on common auction sites.

[Seele]

Jobesmirage,

 

The design feature of the Parker 51 hooded nib pen was geared towards filling from a bottle. Inside the section is the finned collector which works not only as a feed for the tiny nib, but also holds a large quantity of ink to serve as a buffer to regulate ink flow. Filling from a bottle means the collector would invariably be saturated with ink to get it ready to write. The countless Chinese-made hooded nib pens follow this same principle.

 

In that sense, the design is fundamentally at odds with the cartridge/converter principle, where a cartridge is plugged into an empty pen and the ink works its way into the feed through capillary action, which is quite impossible for a pen with finned collector; even if it can be persuaded to work, a full cartridge - or more - would be needed to get the pen primed for use.

 

There might be pens which feature hooded nibs and C/C filling system, but its hooded nib would be more of a stylistic feature, with a regular C/C pen mechanism inside, thus offering no benefit offered by the finned collector system.

[Leeuwenhoek]

On another thread I just recommended the Hero 616 but the silver cap with gold clip model. On mine filling works well. I have also removed the push bar and casing on some of my Chinese pens (they usually just pull of and can be pushed back on). This allows you to squeeze the whole day which might help filling.

 

Another pen I really like that is a hooded catridge/converter is the Baoer 100. My one writes beautifully and it is one the few Chinese pens I have were the laquer has withstanded daily use.

 

I always though the main principle of hooded nibs was to reduce the nib drying when the pen is left uncapped. I do believe they help this. Obviously a CC can be filled from bottle to take advantage of extra ink being held in the fins whilst having the possibility to use cartridges.

Edited June 6, 2016 by Leeuwenhoek

[Seele]

Leeuwenhoek,

 

From experience, the efficiency of these bulb fillers can vary significantly between examples. For instance I bought several ostensibly identical units, and when flushing them with water prior to inking them up, it is not unusual to have one that can fill pretty much the entire sac with three or four presses of the pressbar, and yet another could have difficulties in getting filled halfway.

 

I am at a loss to see how your plan of making a C/C hooded nib pen with finned collector can be a terribly practical proposition. Supposing such a pen is made to appeal to a customer who likes the convenience of disposable cartridges. However, he discovers that he needs to get a bottle of the same ink he wants to use, then use a converter to ink it for the first time before he can use disposable cartridges. So, he uses the converter to make the first fill of ink, but as soon as the pen runs out of ink, he takes the converter off and replaces it with a cartridge, and then the pen remains unusable: because when the ink runs out, the collector would have exhausted the ink it holds anyway, so he'd be back to square one.

[richardandtracy]

I do not know of a c/c type hooded nib pen produced by any Chinese manufacturer.

 

The only two hooded nib c/c pens I do know of were both made by Parker, the short lived & quite uncommon P51 c/c and the quite common P61 c/c rather than capillary version. The P61 is a good pen if you can live with an arrow that falls out all too easily.

 

There are a couple of hooded nib eyedroppers from India - http://fountainpenrevolution.com/AirmailWality.html (ED) & https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/286724-asa-sniper-hooded-nib-custom-pen/ (c/c/ED)

 

Sorry I can't help further.

 

Richard.

[Seele]

Richard,

 

The two Parker models you mentioned definitely did not employ the finned collector, in fact they're of regular pattern but merely with a hooded section covering the nib and feed, thus not offering the performance advantage.

 

There were also a variety of other hooded nib pens without the innards that made the Parker 51 the outstanding pen that it's always been; in that sense it was little more than a styling thing. I have seen quite a number of post-WWII Italian pens of this sort, mostly with syringe fill mechanism. Build quality of these pens tend to be a little spotty though.

[Flounder]

Seele, the Parker 45, c/c 65 and I've pretty sure the c/c 61 all marry a cartridge filling system with a collector btw.

 

Here's the collector from my parker 65. Inserting a fresh cartridge from completely clean and dry, ink reaches the nib after a few minutes standing nib down even with the cap on.

 

http://i773.photobucket.com/albums/yy19/flounder2009/Parker%2065%20fountain%20pen%20repair/Parker%2065%20Mk%203%20Tool%20004.jpg

 

*edited to add - you can see the collector in a c/c 61 in this thread. My 65 had similar connector-rot!

Edited June 6, 2016 by Flounder

[doggonecarl]

The Bulow X30, which I got from Xfountain pens, is a c/c pen with a semi-hooded nib.

 

sbrebrown's review:

 

Edited June 7, 2016 by doggonecarl

[bonsaiboy]

There is a version of the Jinhao 599 that comes with a fine hooded nib and takes cartridges and converters. My experience with them has been good and they tend to be fairly wet. They only cost about $2-$3 delivered.

[Seele]

Flounder,

 

I have never taken apart a Parker 65 so this is new to me; thanks for the tip. What I am sure about is the Parker 51 C/C certainly has no collector, and I doubt if the relatively recent re-issue has totally different innards.

[richardandtracy]

Seele,

You are correct about the Indian pens not having finned collectors - they seem to be hand made on a lathe using traditional feeds. The un-finned feed on the Parker 17 does work really well, and doesn't drip/splodge at all, so with good design the Indian pens could replicate the performance. Must admit I cannot comment on their actual performance, not having tried them.

 

The P51c/c version used the collector-less feed design found on the P17 and P100.

 

Regards,

 

Richard

[Seele]

Richard,

 

The original Parker 21 was designed to get a bit of reflected glory of the 51, and is a pen of regular pattern with a hooded nib without the finned collector. The ones we are likely to come across would be the redesigned one sharing the same basic innards of the 51.

 

It is also interesting to see that I know of at least two Chinese-made hooded nib pens with non-functional collectors: instead of having fins to offer capillary action, their "collectors" were solid instead. It's also been reported at some fraudulent Hero 616 examples have been found with similar non-functioning collectors as well.

 

So it is a little tricky to say what constitute a "hooded nib pen"; the original Parker 51 design has the hooded nib as an integral part of the overall design, but this design feature can be applied on its own to pens operating on very different principles.

[sciumbasci]

I might be wrong, but I seem to remember a c/c hooded fountain pen made in Pakistan.

 

Try to look on ebay for DUX Fountain pens or ORO Fountain pens.

[richardandtracy]

I don't know about the Oro, but the DUX I have (a 612, review https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/89862-dux-612-review/) is like the Hero's in that the filler cannot be removed. It is one of the best non Parker hooded nib pens I have come across. The only one that I found better was the now unavailable Jinhao 321 (review https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/141747-jinhao-321-review ). I must admit that I have NOT tried a Hero 100 - it's a fairly expensive pen and only comes in a fine/extra fine nib and I loathe fine nibs, so would be wasting my money. Today I have a P61 with me, and am relishing its 1.1mm BI nib.

 

Regards,

 

Richard.

[Jobesmirage]

I might be wrong, but I seem to remember a c/c hooded fountain pen made in Pakistan.

 

Try to look on ebay for DUX Fountain pens or ORO Fountain pens.

Yeah there are many hooded nibs out there but most of them have attached aero or squeeze converters and are not ass easy to clean or maintain

[sciumbasci]

I was wrong - it's not the hooded pens that have the sac or the converter, rather it's the win sung pens that come in both versions

[Mech-for-i]

The original Hero 100 is pretty much a mother mold for quite a large variety of Chinese hooded fountain pen up to this day. Almost all the later current production models use C/C together with the hooded, finned feed / Collector inherited from the Parker 51. There are simply too many models from too many Mfr to name them all here. Say the Hero 285 & Hero 5016 are current models with such construction. All of them pretty much share standardize on the Hero Nib so in general one can tune and swap the nib between them quite easily.

Edited June 24, 2016 by Mech-for-i